Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

[TheWanderer]

Should Monsters have Mana Bars?

In D2, some monsters had the annoying habit of draining your mana. Why not WE return the favour in D3? Monsters could have mana bars and we could use attacks like mana burn(not 100%) against them. These wouldn't be of too much use against melees, but against casters it could be deadly. Even if people think that the ability of being able to drain your enemies mana is too easy, we could atleast see when they have enough mana to cast their attacks.
In PvP, the abilities uses are simple enough.
Maybe this shouldn't be a skill for any class, but perhaps a very rare mod on some items.

 

[AtomicJ]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Interesting idea, though in my opinion it's a little unnecessary. For one, enemies' spells tend to be much weaker than the player characters' spells, so the fact that they have unlimited mana seems to balance the game a little more. Secondly, a mana bar for enemies would just seem like another visual distraction. At least that's my two cents.:whistling:

 

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Feedback was awesome in WC. Armor ignoring bonus damage, yummy. Anyways, it would only work on casters, which will most likely die fast already. Why go overkill and make them even weaker? Just a thought.

 

[sicilian]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

We already kind of have this in arcane criticals, which silence the target. Wouldn't surprise me if one of the classes (maybe WD, maybe one of the unannounced), has a Silence spell of some sort, which allows them to intentionally turn off or weaken spell casting enemies.

 

[Dimmu]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

The only way that would work is if it was like an AoE kind of thing or like a curse with a massive cooldown timer. Having it like mana leech on physical attacks is kind of meaningless because the whole problem with caster monsters is that you can't get near them while they're blasting you with fireballs and whatnot. But once you do get close enough to hit, they're toast already.
But yeah like the guy above me said if it were more like a silence type of thing to either nullify or outright stop spellcasting it might work. It would just need a cooldown time that outlasted the effect and be pretty nerfed in PvP.
A mana gauge would just be too much to keep track of, keep it simple.

 

[NASE]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

The question is, can you combine this idea - which is quite good - with balance?

I think it's going to be more then hard enough balancing the game to some extend without this feature. Throwing this in the equation might be to much.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Personally i think that will unbalance the game in favor of the player .. which is unneeded .. player has an arsenal of skills but limited mana .. monsters have unlimited mana but usually have one or two skills only ... it works just fine.

Besides .. you can already prevent the monsters from using their skills by silencing them (it's also one of Arcane damage side effects)

 

[GuardianHadriel]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Interesting idea, though in my opinion it's a little unnecessary. For one, enemies' spells tend to be much weaker than the player characters' spells, so the fact that they have unlimited mana seems to balance the game a little more. Secondly, a mana bar for enemies would just seem like another visual distraction. At least that's my two cents.:whistling:

:agree::thumbup:

 

[Nighthavk]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

monsters have unlimited mana but usually have one or two skills only

Tell that to my Oblivion Knight with Bestow, Bone Armor, Bone Spirit, Decrepify, Iron Maiden, Lower Resist, Weaken, Life Tap, Amplify Damage and Spell Attack!

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Tell that to my Oblivion Knight with Bestow, Bone Armor, Bone Spirit, Decrepify, Iron Maiden, Lower Resist, Weaken, Life Tap, Amplify Damage and Spell Attack!

Evidently the Majority of monsters only have 1 or 2 skills or even none, besides .. what's 6 skills compared to the +25 active skills the player has.

 

[NASE]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

you don't use +25 skill actively.

 

[phor]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

The only reason mana burn is so effective versus players in D2 is because of a bug anyway is it not?

I don't think the concept of mana would add anything to the game when fighting against normal mobs. It could bring something interesting to boss battles though.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

you don't use +25 skill actively.

Still you can switch between as many as you want from the +25 skills which still drains your mana progressively ... besides ... how many monster have the time to use more than 1 or 2 skills before getting killed by the player anyway !!!

 

[Funkopotamus]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Not wasting mana on worthless skills is the only thing that separates us from the animals. C'mon now!

The only way I'd really agree with this is if monsters lasted longer than seconds in the single digits or for bosses. I really don't think they want to slow things down that much so I doubt draining mana will be necessary for most monsters.

 

[James Knight]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

Bosses could use a mana bar, but as much as I like the idea of more visual statistics, it sounds like a pointless one in this case.

 

[squid knight]

Re: Should Mosnsters have Mana Bars?

creatures don't need mana bars. in players, mana is an advanced cooldown mechanic, ensuring that you can't cast everything too much. in monsters, they're not needed. unlike players, monsters can be scripted not to cast as often without the use of mana bars, which also serve as a conceptual aid for players. besides mana drain, there are other mechanics to keep creatures from casting: stun, silence, etc.

And the drawbacks of adding in mana bar unnecessarily are 1) more screen clutter 2) giving monsters their own mana bars makes them seem more significant than they are. in diablo, they barely need health bars. in a game where you're meant to fight one, maybe two monsters at a time, like WoW, mana bars are more appropriate. 3) it makes them more predictable. even if monsters DO use a mana-like mechanic, i don't want to be able to tell when they're casting a spell.